


I'll make a living out of lovin' you

by ChrisJP



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, F/M, M/M, My First Destiel Fanfic, Nerd Dean
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-14
Updated: 2014-11-23
Packaged: 2018-02-21 03:14:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2452682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChrisJP/pseuds/ChrisJP
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean is a weirdo, and is in love with this guy named Castiel... although Castiel is an ass, so Dean hates him. Besides, Castiel is straight... only, he has a profile on Grindr.<br/>Basically, a very intriguing and mysterious Castiel manages to get a very confused and annoyed Dean fall in love with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Crush

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from The Dirty Guv'nahs' song

Dean is a weirdo, OK? A complete fucking weirdo, which is why he built up a GPS out of his old walkman when he was 16 and is also the reason why he’s taking theology courses even though he’s majoring in engineering. Because he’s a nerd and he loves ancient cultures and dead languages and bullshit no one –other than him and the guy whose back he’s been staring at for the past five weeks– is interest in. The guy’s name? Castiel. Castiel Novak. And, come on, is that even a real name?  
  
  
Dean wants to know the story behind that name because there _has ___to be a story behind that name. And he also wants to know what Castiel’s favorite music is because he looks like the kind of guy who would listen to underground folk-country-indie shit, but wouldn’t it be awesome if he secretly loved Zeppelin? And Dean also wants to know why he always wears a business suit and a trench coat to class, doesn’t he own any other clothes or does he have a closet full of them or what?  
  
  
Dean wants to know more about Castiel’s charity work –because he once mentioned it in class and Dean was very intrigued about it, actually, Dean is very intrigued about this guy and he wants to know a whole lot of things about him, like if he can smile other than that sarcastic smirk he does when the teacher tries to be funny, if his big blue eyes shine with happiness when he does smile or if he’s even truly happy, ever. He wants to know whether or not he likes to cuddle and the sounds he makes when he comes and Dean is not the kind of guy who just stares at someone’s back for five weeks without doing anything about it but he’s also not the kind of guy who wonders whether someone prefers white or black chocolate… but when Castiel walks into the classroom wearing his usual trench coat and blue tie and locks –just for a second– his eyes on Dean’s before sitting in his usual spot just in front of Dean’s, and his stomach flips just a bit because he thought for a second that Castiel wouldn’t make it to class today, but he did and Dean’s _happy? ___That he’s here… he might start to think that maybe, and just maybe…  
  
  
“You have a crush on him” whispers a voice on his right ear.  
  
“WHAT?” Dean’s eyes leave Castiel’s back to fix on his friend’s face “No, I don’t” he lowers the tone of his voice to make sure Castiel can’t hear them “Shut up, Charlie”.  
“You should do something about it” she says after sighing and dramatically rolling her eyes.  
  
“Like what?”  
  
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe this weird thing some weird people sometimes do, I believe it’s called ‘going on a date’?”  
  
“You want me to ask him out?”  
  
“No, Dean. YOU want to ask him out! I’m just saying you should”  
  
“Actually, I want to ask him to marry me…” he lets out without actually thinking what he’s saying and ignoring Charlie’s ‘awww’ “but… I mean, look at him! He’s double majoring in philosophy and theology, and he’s taking psychology courses, he volunteers in a charitable Foundation, he reads a new book every week and he’s _gorgeous ___” Dean actually makes a pained noise when he says that last word because seriously the lines of Castiel’s face are just so beautiful and his big puppy eyes and his messy black hair and his fucking everything and, what was he talking about?  
  
“So? You’re attractive too. If we were straight, I’d totally bang you.”  
  
“Ew, Charlie, don’t… And let me remind you, I’m bi, so I’m like… half straight” He checks to see if the teacher has arrived yet before continuing “But… I’m an awkward second-year, engineering student who calls his car ‘Baby’ and who dragged his best friend into an Ancient Greece course because he doesn’t want to be alone. I don’t have a snowball’s of a snowball’s chance with him!”  
  
Charlie sighs one more time “Whatever, keep staring at his back then” he says before opening her book and leafing through it.  
  
He hates that she’s right even if she didn’t say a thing because she implied he’s a coward and she’s right and he hates that. Because he is a fucking coward and he’s going to end up being the drunk uncle for Sammy’s kids because he’ll never find someone who wants him for something more than a one-night-stand because, sure, if he wanted to he could find a way to get in Castiel’ pants –because he’s Dean Winchester and he always gets in everybody’s pants if he wants to– but he doesn’t want to do just that. He wants to know things about him and wants to call him Cas and wants to have him whispering in dead languages in his ear and he has never been that close with anyone since Lisa and… that didn’t end up very well, and his self-esteem is beyond fucked up and he just wouldn’t dare to do something about the massive crush he has on Castiel because he’s way out of his league and he’s not going to embarrass himself. Just no.  
  
  
So, he does as Charlie told him and he keeps staring at his back. But when the teacher tells them to form groups for a project and Castiel turns to ask if they can all work together, he doesn’t even try to hide his smile because he can’t believe this incredibly handsome and intelligent man wants to work with him in a project about Ancient Greece and he really doesn’t know much about Ancient Greece, he shouldn’t even be here, like, he didn’t have to take this class but he did, because he’s a weirdo.


	2. Jerk

“So, Castiel is a jerk” Dean says, sitting beside Charlie in the bed in Jo Harvelle’s dorm room -where they’re all gathered to watch the season finale of Doctor Sexy- without even saying ‘Hi’ first.  
  
“Nice to see you too, Dean-o” Jo says, frowning.  
  
Dean just sighs dramatically and rests his forehead against his knees. But when Jo mouths “Who’s Castiel?” at Charlie and she answers out loud “His crush”, Dean’s head snaps back up to clarify:  
  
“He’s not my crush”.  
  
“Alright, sorry. The ‘Love of his life’” She emphasizes the words with an exaggerated eyebrows raise and Dean groans, rolling his eyes and regretting the moment he let any thoughts about Castiel past his lips.  
  
“He’s not… He’s none of that, alright? He’s a jerk, that’s what he is”.  
  
“Jesus! You’re pissed. What on earth did the guy do to you?” Jo asks, grinding as she gets the popcorn bag from the microwave and serves it in a bowl.  
“Dude is fluid in Greek and Latin and French and who-knows-what-else and I can barely understand English and that’s not fair.” He says, getting up to take a popcorn out of the bowl and pointing at Jo with it. “It’s not fair because he’s a dick about it. And he’s incredibly hot so he can be all of a dick as he wants and it’d be ok because he’s so good-looking nobody would give a damn about his ‘I’m better than everybody else’ attitude because you know what? It’s true: he is, he’s better than everybody else, and I hate that, and I hate him because it’s not fair!”  
  
“How do you even know all that? You stalker!” says Charlie  
  
“I’m not… I’m not stalking him, OK? It’s just that…”  
  
“So he’s a jerk, so what? Let it go, Dean-o, he’s not the love of your life, you’ll have to find another” Jo says, shrugging  
  
“Yeah, better luck next time, sorry, man”  
  
“Jeez, I go away for ten minutes and you’re already whining all over the place” asks Benny as he enters through the door, carrying a big bottle of coke.  
  
“Hey, man!” he shakes Dean’s hand, smiling, as he settles the bottle in Jo’s desk.  
  
“Oh, God! Would you shut up?” Charlie asked, annoyed, pointing at the T.V. with a popcorn before throwing it in her mouth “It’s starting”  
  
  
They all mumble their apologies as Benny pours them coke in some glasses and settle in the bed so they can all watch their show. And for a moment Dean forgets about everything. Fuck Castiel and his pretentiousness and fuck his homework and fuck his not having talked to his parents in about a month and he really should call them though, but not right now, right now it was just him and his friends and Doctor Sexy and popcorn. The rest of the world could fuck off, for now.  
  
His phone kept buzzing on the table and he pointedly ignored it because he had a lot of work to do for school and he didn't want to think about that right now, he just wanted to watch Doctor Sexy with his friends and relax and forget about everything else for half an hour. So his phone kept making the sound he knew meant people was texting him but he refused to get out of the bed and see who it was.  
  
"Dean, would you please pick up your phone and tell whoever is harassing you on Grindr to shut up?" Jo finally snapped.  
  
"What?" he asked, though he obliged and got up to put his phone on silent mode, still refusing to open the messages app "And what the fuck's a Grindr? Whatcha talking about?"  
  
"You mean you don't have it?" she didn't even wait for Dean to answer "It's a gay app, you create a profile and meet other guys through it"  
  
"I am SO going to create you a profile, dude" Benny said, smiling widely and pointing at Dean with a his forefinger before putting the handful of popcorn he had grabbed in his mouth and continue to talk, chewing at the same time "you've been lonely for too long, you need a man to give it to you good and hard"  
  
“Oh my God, you did not just said that” Dean muttered, closing his eyes  
  
"Yeah, you need the D, Dean" Jo agreed, laughing at Benny’s lack of subtlety.  
  
"God, would you two shut up?" he groaned trying to hide his blush by turning his back on them "I'm perfectly fine with my own D, thank you very much"  
  
"Oh I'm sure you two are in a really healthy, exclusive relationship" she said, taking a handful of popcorn from the bowl.  
  
"I'm going to introduce you to someone" Benny continued, ignoring Dean's please-god-kill-me-now face "not that I know anyone who would be interested in you, but as soon as I do... I mean, not that people wouldn't be interested in you but, you know, like... Guys, who would be into guys. I don't know many, actually, I think you're the only gay dude I..."  
  
"I'M BI!" Dean almost shouted, all flustered  
  
“I will never again watch a season finale with you asses” said Charlie, glaring at them before turning the TV volume up.  
  
And with that they all turned they attention to the series again. But Dean’s mind kept thinking, what if…  
  


  



	3. Grindr

He got up the bed to get himself some coke and grabbed his phone too, quickly checking his messages, they were all from Sammy and his mom, he would answer them later. Once he poured the coke in his glass, he returned to the bed where his friends were.  
  
What if his friends were right? What if he had been alone for too long? What if the reason he kept having meaningless one-night stands and developing crushes on impossible assholes was that he had forgotten how to actually be with someone? The thought made him a little bit sad, not that he’d ever said it out loud, but he thought… _What if I download that app? ___  
  
He glanced over to his friends, to make sure none of them saw what he was doing.  
  
 _What was its name? Grindr?_ he thought as he typed it in the app store of his phone.

  


As the credit titles went on the TV screen and Charlie sobbed and gasped still not believing they decided to end the season that way, Dean cleaned his eye because something had gotten in there, not that he was crying, no, not at all.  
  
He checked his phone again and looked at the notification bar, the app was installed. His heart skipped a bit but he ignored it and decided to read his messages instead. His mom wanted him to go back to Lawrence for the weekend, she said they missed him and given he had no class on Fridays and only two on Tuesdays afternoons and Monday was a minor holiday, but still a holiday, he’d be free for five days.  
  
  
 **You should come, sweetheart**  
 **It’s only a two-hour drive**  
 **And Sammy misses you**  
 **We all do, son**  
  
Dean smiled fondly, typing a quick affirmative response to his mom and then to Sammy who was spamming his phone.  
  
  
 **“You coming?**  
 **Dean**  
 **Dean, you coming?**  
 **Dean, are you gonna come?**  
 **Know what, forget it**  
 **I don’t want you to come**  
 **Dean**  
 **Don’t be a jerk, come on!**  
 **Actually, do, come, please**  
 **I’m bored**  
 **Whatcha doing?**  
 **Dad’s being a nightmare**  
 **You gonna come or not?**  
 **Y U IGNORING ME MAN????”**  
  
 **“I’m going, stop whining.**  
 **Bitch”**  
  
He said his good-byes to his friends and left early, against Jo protests because if he was leaving tomorrow he needed to pack some stuffs and get some shit done before. He felt his phone buzzing but didn’t check until he arrived to his own dorm, though he already knew what it was. Sam’s answer:  
  
 **“Jerk.”**  
  
After packing some T-shirts and typing the beginning to some reports he had due next week, Dean finally lay in his bed at midnight and took his phone. He opened the app and created a profile. It had an easy-going layout. It showed you pics of the guys who had it that were near to you and if you wanted to you could talk to them. Some guys talked to him and he had some easy conversations until a weirdo send him a totally-fake-but-not-that-he-looked nude so he closed the app and went to sleep.  
  
The next day, he had to deliver a paper and then he’d go home. He was so happy to see his mother again, God he missed that woman. And he could use the break, because really, campus life was awesome but also really stressing, plus, everybody he knew was going out this weekend and he had no money so he preferred to go see his mom instead of staying in his dorm watching porn and eating frozen lasagna while everybody else was partying until they passed out.  
  
Before leaving, he went visit Charlie and had lunch with her. While they were eating, he decided to check the app one more time before deleting it from his phone because he was going to spend 5 days in Lawrence, and that meant 5 days of having the gossipy and noisy people from his hometown watching every step he took. He couldn’t risk somebody finding out he had that only-for-gay-men app on his phone. Not that he was gay, he was bi, but to his father it was all the same and after that big fight they had during Dean’s senior year in high school, when he briefly dated a guy called Jesse before meeting Lisa… well, that was something he didn’t want to relive. He had played it off as ‘experimenting’ so his parents had let it go, but he knew they wouldn’t accept it if he officially came out to them. At least not his dad, he often wondered what his mom really thought about it, but she never said a thing.  
  
He sighed, as he opened the app one more time. He choked on his food when he saw the screen.


	4. Talk to me ;)

“No way” he said out loud, scrolling on his phone.

“What is it, Dean-o?”

“No fucking way” he felt his hand drop the burger he had been chewing to cover his open mouth before even realizing it.

He stared blankly at his phone screen. Yeah, that was him, each and every one of the pictures, smiling or frowning, with other people or alone, in every one there was Castiel. Even the username was ‘Castiel’. There wasn’t much of a description just “Philosophy & Theology student. Talk to me ;)”. It was him. And he had used a winky face what the fuck

 “OH. MY. GOD!!!!”

“What? What is it? Why’re you talking like Janice from ‘Friends’ now?” the redhead asked, trying to get his phone.

“Charlie…” he said, ceremonially, tearing his eyes off the screen to finally looking at her “You know what Grindr is, right?”

“Isn’t it that gay app Jo teased you about?”

“Yeah… Well, guess who has a profile on it?” he said turning his phone so she could see.

“You actually downloaded this thing? Aw, he’s cute” she said looking at the first picture, and then opening her mouth when she saw the others “Oh my God! It’s Castiel!”

“It’s Castiel!”

“I’ts Castiel!”

“I know!”

“Oh my God, Castiel is gay!”

“I think he’s bi, though” Dean said, trying to keep his cool, as he put his phone back on his pocket before he did something stupid like talking to him. “I once saw him with a girl”

And, yeah, that hadn’t been nice, running into his _not_ -crush while he was openly making out with some chick he didn’t actually had the time to check who was because he was too busy pretending he was not staring at Castiel’s ruffled hair and sallow red lips.

“Oh my God, Dean you have to talk to him!”

“I can’t!” he actually whined, but then sighed and kept talking “At least, not until I come back from Lawrence, I gotta delete the app before leaving campus”

“What? Why?”

“You’ve never lived in a small town, havecha?” he said, chewing on his burger, _keep your cool Winchester, it’s not like you’ve just realized you might actually stand a chance with the guy you’ve been fantasizing with for the past month or so._

“Well, no… but what does that have to do wi…?”

“It’s a nightmare for queer people, a total nightmare. Plus, my dad would kill me if...” he cut that train of thought, he didn’t want to think about that right now “No. I’m deleting it for the weekend and when I come back, I’ll download it again.”

“But are you gonna talk to him, right?”

“Hell, no!”

“Why not? This app is giving you the perfect excuse!”

“What excuse? There’ll be no excuse. I know why he has that app and he’d know why I have it, and then it’d be awkward… besides, there’s that group project we still haven’t done.”

“Fuck, the group project!” Charlie dropped her fork and brought her hand to her forehead in sudden concern “I had totally forgotten about it…Why did I let you drag me into taking that stupid class, again?”

“Because you love me so much”

They finished their lunch in silence and Charlie gave him a big hug and a kiss on the cheek and asked him to say hi to his family for him, which he answered with a “yeah, yeah” that earned him a punch in the arm that was still hurting when he walked out of Charlie’s dorm and saw Castiel in the distance, walking fast, kind of jogging, probably late for class. He held his breath only for a second as he checked his phone.

“Castiel. Philosophy & Theology student. Talk to me ;) 0,1 mi away” read over the Facebook profile picture of one Castiel Novak, not that he had stalked him, he totally hadn’t, but he had seen that picture before, _somewhere_.

He gulped, and looked up. Castiel was gone. He felt the strange urge to talk to him, just to see what would happen… But as a got a text from his dad asking what time was he arriving on Lawrence, he settled for deleting the app, it was better that way.


End file.
